The bust of Pat Bowlen is unveiled in front of Sports Authority Field at Mile High Stadium. Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen will be inducted into the team’s Ring of Fame against the Packers on Nov. 2, 2015.

As more than two dozen past and present Broncos gathered near him to reminisce about their playing days, the fun moments on the road, those memories of training camps, the victories, the losses, the years missed since retiring, Tom Jackson stood alone.

He stood alone in silence, a smile stretched across his face as he read silently the gold engraving on Pat Bowlen’s bronze pillar that had just been unveiled on the Ring of Fame plaza at Sports Authority Field on Friday evening.

“A member of the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame, Mr. Bowlen’s iconic ownership is defined by his simple approach to be ‘number one in everything,’ ” it read.

Jackson’s grin grew larger with every word he scanned and every memory he recalled. The former Broncos linebacker and member of the legendary Orange Crush defense was back where his career started to honor an owner who arrived late in his playing days but had a lasting impact.

More than 40 members of the 1997 Super Bowl team, as well as about 20 Ring of Famers, returned to the Mile High City for a weekend-long celebration of Bowlen, who will be inducted into the Ring of Fame during halftime of Sunday’s Broncos-Packers game.

“He’s very special in the way he’s contributed to this community and, most of us, to our individual lives,” Jackson said of Bowlen. “Every owner wants to do well. Pat was pretty demanding early on that this team was going to have great success, that his objective was to win Super Bowls, that he didn’t want to settle for, ‘We’re going to win a Western Division championship,’ or ‘We’re going to win an AFC championship.’ He had his heart set on winning Super Bowls. I think he still does.”

Former tight end Shannon Sharpe, who was part of the Broncos’ two Super Bowl winning teams, in 1997 and 1998, reunited with many former teammates Friday, including safeties Dennis Smith and Steve Atwater, and quarterback turned general manager, John Elway.

In between hugs, thoughts of Bowlen, who was represented by his wife, Annabel, and his children, were shared, many resulting in laughs, many leading to nods of admiration, all ending with smiles.

“If we didn’t succeed on the football field, it was because we didn’t get it done,” Sharpe said. “It wasn’t because we didn’t have the best training. It wasn’t because we didn’t stay in the best hotel. It wasn’t because we didn’t have the best food. We knew we had the best of everything and it was just up to us to go out there and perform. That’s what you can appreciate most. He wasn’t meddlesome. He stayed away. He let the guys he hired to do the job do their job.”

Nicki Jhabvala is the lead Broncos and NFL beat writer for The Denver Post. She was previously the digital news editor for sports. Before arriving at The Post in 2014, she spent nearly two years as a senior staff editor at The New York Times and five years at Sports Illustrated.

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